


Be Gentle Sky, And Let Me Rest

by SharpestScalpel



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-03
Updated: 2011-08-03
Packaged: 2017-10-22 03:58:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/233504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharpestScalpel/pseuds/SharpestScalpel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's appropriate weather for a funeral.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be Gentle Sky, And Let Me Rest

It was, Leonard acknowledged with a bitter twist of his chapped mouth, fitting that the weather was what it was; even San Francisco showed her respect, he thought, though he didn’t usually allow himself much in the way of poetics. The rain pissed down, grey and cold, almost an excuse for the numbness in his bones. Almost, but not quite. And it was no excuse at all for Jim’s glassy eyes, unfocused with the younger man’s efforts to keep himself composed.

They’d known it, in that intellectual way people sometimes considered mortality. And, as men who were faced with the fragility of human existence on a near-daily basis, they had refused to consider it in any other fashion. To ponder it, to meditate upon it, would have frozen them, cost them their actions – and that would have cost them everything.

Four years. They’d had four years, mostly over subspace communication – too little time actually spent in one another’s company. Five shore leaves – two more than had been planned but Jim had a knack for getting them close to Earth and then deciding his ship needed repairs or upgrades. Scotty backed him up every single time, and the crew was grateful for it.

Chris had been grateful for it – and amused as all hell at the way Jim flouted the other Admirals and their constant conflicting desires. The Enterprise was meant for deep space, but she was a weapon of politics as well: no one liked to feel as though Earth were undefended. It was still too soon. So Jim and Bones ventured out a little further each time, but always returned to the house in the Mojave, an unexpected sanctuary for the three men who occupied it.

The two men, now, if they could bring themselves to go back. It was still full of Chris’s things but Chris himself… Well, Leonard mused, if he was going to indulge himself in metaphor it was probably okay to say that Chris was still there, too. The man had his fingerprints all over the property, from the solid and safe stables to the thoughtfully placed wells for horses and riders who found themselves too long gone without hydration. The house was in Jim’s name now, and all of the horses belonged to Leonard.

“You ready?” The funeral itself had ended an hour ago. The crowd had dispersed, but Jim had stayed where he was, staring at the shiny new plaque commemorating Admiral Christopher Richard Pike’s place among the rank and file of simple reminders.

Jim sighed. “He never would have wanted to be stuck on Earth like this.” It was probably true. They’d never talked about it, though. Too concerned with making the most of their time, every urgent hot moment of it right down to the quiet seconds that ticked by when they were tender with each other. But Chris had been in love with the stars – so in love that he’d resigned his commission rather than sit behind a desk and watch other people do what he could not. Oh, he’d walked again, with assistance, but he’d been… he’d been an action captain. And when he knew he would never be that again, Chris had retired with as much dignity as his occasional bitterness would allow.

Leonard’s hand shook when he lifted it from his side, reached out to place it at the small of Jim’s back. “I know.” It would be easy to mutter a platitude about how they would both carry Chris with them back into space – and it would be true. But it wouldn’t help. Nothing was actually going to help, Leonard knew that from experience.

They would be cold for a while, no telling how long. They would have to keep each other warm. He used a little pressure, steered Jim, with as much gentleness as he could muster, away. Back to their ground car. Back to their lives, which would go on in the way lives went on.


End file.
